and tossed through the air like a flying river; but the common motion of the waves was to climb up the hills, or inclined fragments, and then return into the valleys and deeps again, with a perpetual fluctuation going and coming, ascending and descending, till the violence of them being spent by degrees, they settled at last in the places allotted for them; where bounds are set that they can not pass over, that they return not again to pass over the earth.'

We deem it unnecessary to follow our author any farther, or to attempt to analyze the ingenious, though fallacious reasoning by which he endeavors to defend his theory from the inseparable objections which the plainest facts of geology and natural philosophy furnish against it. The concluding part of his work relates to the final conflagration of the world, by which, he supposes, the surface of the new chaotic mass will be restored to smoothness, and 'leave a capacity for another world to rise from it.' Here the style of the author rises into a magnificence worthy of the sublimity of the theme, and he concludes with impressive and appropriate reflections on the transient nature of earthly things. The following is the passage, and it is appropriately termed, by Addison, the author's funeral oration over the globe:

THE FINAL CONFLAGRATION OF THE GLOBE.

But 'tis not possible, from any station, to have a full prospect of this last scene of the earth, for 'tis a mixture of fire and darkness. This new temple is filled with smoke while it is consecrating, and none can enter into it. But I am apt to think, if we could look down upon this burning world from above the clouds, and have a full view of it in all its parts, we should think it a lively representation of hell itself; for fire and darkness are the two chief things by which that state or that place uses to be described; and they are both here mingled together, with all other ingredients that make that tophet that is prepared of old (Isaiah xxx.). Here are lakes of fire and brimstone, rivers of melted glowing matter, ten thousand volcanos vomiting flames all at once, thick darkness, and pillars of smoke twisted about with wreaths of flame, like fiery snakes; mountains of earth thrown up into the air, and the heavens dropping down in lumps of fire. These things will all be literally true concerning that day and that state of the earth. And if we suppose Beelzebub and his apostate crew in the midst of this fiery furnace (and I know not where they can be else), it will be hard to find any part of the universe, or any state of things, that answers to so many of the properties and characters of hell, as this which is now before us.

But if we suppose the storm over, and that the fire hath gotten an entire victory over all other bodies, and subdued every thing to itself, the conflagration will end in a deluge of fire, or in a sea of fire, covering the whole globe of the earth; for, when the exterior region of the earth is melted into a fluor, like molten glass or running metal, it will, according to the nature of other fluids, fill all vacuities and depressions, and fall into a regular surface, at an equal distance everywhere from its centre. This sea of fire, like the first abyss, will cover the face of the whole earth, make a kind of second chaos, and leave a capacity for another world to rise from it. But that is not our present business. Let us only, if you please, to take leave of this subject, reflect, upon this occasion, on the vanity and transient glory of all this habitable world; how, by the force of one element breaking loose upon the rest, all the varieties of nature, all the works of art, all the labours of men, are reduced to

nothing; all that we admired and adored before, as great and magnificent, is obliterated or vanished; and another form and face of things, plain, simple, and everywhere the same, overspreads the whole earth. Where are now the great empires of the world, and their great imperial cities? Their pillars, trophies, and monuments of glory? Show me where they stood, read the inscription, tell me the victor's name? What remains, what impressions, what difference or distinction do you see in this mass of fire? Rome itself, eternal Rome, the great city, the empress of the world, whose domination and superstition, ancient and modern, make a great part of the history of this earth, what is become of her now? She laid her foundations deep, and her palaces were strong and sumptuous: she glorified herself, and lived deliciously, and said in her heart, I sit a queen, and shall see no sorrow. But her hour is come; she is wiped away from the face of the earth, and buried in perpetual oblivion. But it is not cities only, and works of men's hands, but the everlasting hills, the mountains and rocks of the earth, are melted as wax before the sun, and their place is nowhere found. Here stood the Alps, a prodigious range of stone, the load of the earth, that covered many countries, and reached their arms from the ocean to the Black Sea; this huge mass of stone is softened and dissolved, as a tender cloud into rain. Here stood the African mountains, and Atlas with his top above the clouds. There was frozen Caucasus, and Taurus, and Imaus, and the mountains of Asia. And yonder, towards the north, stood the Riphæan hills, clothed in ice and snow. All these are vanished, dropped away as the snow upon their heads, and swallowed up in a red sea of fire, (Rev. xv. .3.) Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of Saints. Hallelujah.

THOMAS SPRAT was the son of a clergyman, and was born at Tallaton, Devonshire, in 1636. He studied at a private school until 1651, and then entered Wadham College, Oxford, where he remained to take his master's degree, soon after which he was chosen fellow. In 1659, he first appeared as an author, by the publication of a panegyric on the virtues of Oliver Cromwell, whose death had recently occurred. This poem was dedicated to Dr. Wilkins, under whom Sprat had studied mathematics at Oxford, and at whose house, as we have already observed, the philosophical inquirers who originated the Royal Society, were accustomed, at that time, to meet. Sprat's intimacy with Dr. Wilkins led to his elevation as a member of the society soon after its incorporation; and in 1667, he published the history of that learned body, in order to dissipate the prejudice and suspicion with which it was regarded by the public.

Previous to the publication of his History of the Royal Society, Sprat had been appointed chaplain to the Duke of Buckingham; and he is supposed to have aided that nobleman in writing the 'Rehearsal.' He also became chaplain to the king; and under these circumstances ecclesiastical promotion could hardly fail to follow: accordingly, after several other advancing steps, the see of Rochester was attained, in 1684. During the next year he served the government, by writing and publishing an account of the Ryehouse plot; but for this work he found it convenient, after the Revolution, to send forth an apology: and having submitted to the new government, he was allowed, notwithstanding his well-known attachment to the abdicated monarch, to remain unmolested in his bishopric. In 1692, how

ever, he was involved in trouble by a false accusation of joining in a conspiracy for the restoration of King James; but after a confinement of eleven days, he clearly proved his innocence of the charge preferred against him. But so deep was the impression made by this event upon his mind, that he ever afterwards, during his life, observed the anniversary of his deliverance as a day of thanksgiving; and thenceforth until his death, which occurred on the twentieth of May, 1713, he lived in comparative retirement. Besides the works already mentioned, Dr. Sprat wrote the Life of Cowley usually prefixed to the works of that poet; a volume of Sermons, and one or two other minor productions. Of his style Dr. Johnson speaks as that of an author whose pregnancy of imagination and eloquence of language have deservedly set him high in the ranks of literature.' Though, perhaps, this praise is somewhat extravagant, yet it must be confessed that Sprat's excellence is unquestionably such, as to entitle him to be mentioned among the leading prose writers of this period. The qualities which particularly characterize his style, are strength, neatness, smoothness, and precision; with little, however, of the splendor which the eulogy of the great critic would induce a reader to expect. Having already given, in the life of Dr. Wilkins, an extract from Sprat's History of the Royal Society,' we shall close these remarks with the following passage from the 'Life of Cowley' :—

COWLEY'S LOVE OF RETIREMENT.

Upon the king's happy restoration, Mr. Cowley was past the fortieth year of his age; of which the greatest part had been spent in a various and tempestuous condition. He now thought he had sacrificed enough of his life to his curiosity and experience. He had enjoyed many excellent occasions of observation. He had been present in many great revolutions, which in that tumultuous time disturbed the peace of all our neighbour states as well as our own. He had nearly beheld all the splendour of the highest part of mankind. He had lived in the presence of princes, and familiarly conversed with greatness in all its degrees, which was necessary for one that would contemn it a right; for to scorn the pomp of the world before a man knows it, does commonly proceed from ill manners than a true magnanimity.

He was now weary of the vexations and formalities of an active condition. He had been perplexed with a long compliance to foreign manners. He was satiated with the arts of court; which sort of life, though his virtue had made innocent to him, yet nothing could make it quiet. These were the reasons that moved him to forego all public employments, and to follow the violent inclination of his own mind, which in the greatest throng of his former business had still called upon him, and represented to him the true delights of solitary studies, of temperate pleasures, and of a moderate revenue, below the malice and flatteries of fortune.

*

*

In his last seven or eight years he was concealed in his beloved obscurity, and possessed that solitude, which, from his very childhood, he had always most passionately desired. Though he had frequent invitations to return into business, yet he never gave ear to any persuasions of profit or preferment. His visits to the city and court were very few; his stays in town were only as a passenger, not an inhabitant. The places that he chose for the seats of his declining life were two or three villages on the bank of the Thames. During this recess, his mind was rather exercised on what was to come than what was past; he suffered no more business nor cares of life to come near him than what were enough to keep his soul awake, but VOL. II.-O

not to disturb it. Some few friends and books, a cheerful heart, and innocent conscience, were his constant companions. *

*

I acknowledge he chose that state of life, not out of any poetical rapture, but upon a steady and sober experience of human things. But, however, I can not applaud it in him. It is certainly a great disparagement to virtue and learning itself, that those very things which only make men useful in the world should incline them to leave it. This ought never to be allowed to good men, unless the bad had the same moderation, and were willing to follow them into the wilderness. But if the one shall contend to get out of employment, while the other strive to get into it, the affairs of mankind are like to be in so ill a posture, that even the good men themselves will hardly be able to enjoy their very retreats in security.

GILBERT BURNET, the son of a Scottish advocate of high reputation, was born in Edinburgh, on the eighteenth of September, 1643. His father having refused to acknowledge Cromwell's authority, was thrown out of employment during the Protector's ascendency, and, therefore, assumed, himself, the care of his son's education. The result was all that could have been anticipated; for so prodigiously rapid was the youth's progress in his studies, that before he had reached the tenth year of his age, he entered the university of Aberdeen. Having successfully completed his collegiate course, he entered life as a clergyman of the Church of Scotland, and afterwards held, for a number of years, the divinity professorship in the university of Glasgow. From Glasgow he removed to a benefice in London, and through his talents and consummate address, soon rendered himself the confidant of many persons of great political influence.

In 1679 Burnet greatly increased his reputation by publishing the first volume of a History of the Reformation in England. The appearance of this work at the time when the Popish plot was absorbing public attention, procured, for the author, the thanks of both houses of parliament, with a request that he would complete the history. This he eventually did, by publishing two additional volumes, the one in 1681, and the other in 1714; and the work is much the best account extant of the important occurrences of which it treats. The conduct of Charles the Second, toward the conclusion of his reign, was highly offensive to Burnet, who consequently formed an intimate connection with the opposition party, and even wrote a letter to the king, freely censuring both his public acts and private vices. As his opinions, thus unreservedly expressed, brought him under the displeasure of the court, Burnet retired to the continent, where he was most graciously received by both the Prince and Princess of Orange, into whose service hc immediately entered; and accompanying them, at the Revolution, to England, he was soon after rewarded for his services with the bishopric of Salis bury. The remainder of his life he passed in the quiet discharge of his prelatical duties, and in literary pursuits, and his death occurred on the seventeenth of March, 1715.

Bishop Burnet left in manuscript his celebrated History of My Ow1 Times, giving an outline of the events of the civil war and commonwealth and a full narration of what took place from the Restoration to the yea

1713, during which period the author passed from the seventeenth to the seventieth year of his age. As he had, under various circumstances, personally known the conspicuous characters of a whole century, and penetrated most of the state secrets of a period nearly as long, he has been able to exhibit all these in his work with a felicity not inferior to Clarendon's, though allowance must, in his case, also, be made for political prejudices. Foreseeing that the freedom with which he had delivered his opinions concerning men of all ranks and parties, would give offence to many, Burnet ordered, in his will, that his history should not be published till six years after his death; and it did not, therefore, appear until 1723. Its publication, as was expected, was the sequel for the commencement of numerous attacks on the reputation of the author, whose veracity and fairness were loudly impeached. It fell under the lash of such Tory wits as Pope, Swift, and Arbuthnot; but in the judgment of a more impartial posterity there is no good reason to suppose that the author, in any case, willingly distorts the truth, though in his preface he admits that some things may have been over-colored.

In addition to those works already mentioned, Bishop Burnet wrote Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton; An Account of the Life and Death of the Earl of Rochester, whom he attended on his penitent death-bed; The Lives of Sir Matthew Hale, and Bishop Bedell; a translation of Sir Thomas More's Utopia: and various theological treatises, among which is an Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England. His style, though too unpolished to place him in the first class of historical writers, is both spirited and vigorous; while his works afford sufficient evidence that to various and extensive knowledge he added great acuteness in the discrimination of human character. As he composed with ease and rapidity, and avoided long and intricate sentences, his works are read with more facility than those of Clarendon. From the History of the Reformation' we select the first of the following extracts, and the other we take from the History of My Own Times.'

DEATH AND CHARACTER OF EDWARD VI.

In the beginning of January this year (1553), he was seized with a deep cough, and all medicines that were used did rather increase than lessen it. He was so ill when the parliament met, that he was not able to go to Westminster, but ordered their first meeting and the sermon to be at Whitehall. In the time of his sickness, Bishop Ridley preached before him, and took occasion to run out much on works of charity, and the obligation that lay on men of high condition to be eminent in good works. This touched the king to the quick; so that, presently after the sermon, he sent for the bishop. And, after he had commanded him to sit down by him, and be covered, he resumed most of the heads of the sermon, and said he looked upon himself as chiefly touched by it. He desired him, as he had already given him the exhortation in general, so to direct him to do his duty in that particular. The bishop, astonished at this tenderness in so young a prince,* burst forth

*The king was sixteen years of age.